


Into the Woods

by polytropic



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, Private Investigators, Welsh mythology - Freeform, mentions of gendered slurs, mentions of past bullying, warning for mentions of canonical abduction of children, werewolf biting without prior consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 04:06:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polytropic/pseuds/polytropic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Boyd is ready to move on from his sister's assumed death and wants his family to have closure, so he hires the best private firm in town to help close her missing person case. That firm happens to be Hale, Martin and Reyes, licensed private investigators.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into the Woods

The man stands outside for almost a full half hour before he opens the door. There’s a streetlamp out there, fuzzy and distant through the ever-present rain this time of year, and in its glow all Erica can see is his outline in the gathering dark. He has a long, tan jacket and broad shoulders; the rain and the light both slide off of them and puddle at his feet.

When he does finally push open the door, he leaves drips on his way to the desk. Erica eyes them judgmentally. Lydia has Views about the cleanliness of their little office, and somehow Erica always ends up being the one holding the mop.

The man takes his hat off. He’s younger than Erica pegged him at first but big, sexy in a quiet sort of way. She pops her gum at him to see if it’ll annoy him. He gives her a very unimpressed look. She smiles with all of her (sharp) teeth. 

“Hale, Martin and Reyes, how can I help you?”

“Are you Laura? We spoke on the phone.”

“No, I’m Reyes. Erica,” she fills in when he looks confused. “Laura is out on a case. Watcha want?” She pops her gum again for good measure. Laura said that anyone Erica can annoy out of being a client probably isn’t worth the trouble anyways, and even though she probably only said it to make Erica take desk duty, Erica is going to apply that policy liberally. “Girlfriend cheating? Boyfriend cheating? Zefriend cheating? All of the above?” He’s starting to look pissed off at last. Excellent. “Nah, you’re giving me a Single and Sad vibe, no offense. So your apartment got broken into? We can find who did it, super easy, no trouble. Ditto with stolen cars, lost items—“

He puts his hand down on the desk. He doesn’t do it loudly, and he’s not all in Erica’s face or anything, she doesn’t feel threatened, but…she stops talking. 

“I need you to help me prove that my sister is dead. It’s been ten years, we know she’s gone, but my family isn’t going to move on until we know for sure.”

Shit. Shit, this is one of Those Cases, a ten-year-old disappearance from who knows where and with who knows how much jurisdictional mess involved. Erica worries her lip with one of her canines, which she knows is smudging her lip gloss. Laura also has a policy that whoever accepts the wild goose chase cases has to be the one to take lead on them.

She looks back up. The man is looking at her.  There’s a drip of water making its way steadily down his hairline and across his temple.

“What’s your name?”

“Boyd. Vernon Boyd, but don’t. It’s just Boyd.”

He blinks when she slaps the intake form down in front of him. “Well, Boyd, you have engaged the services of our private investigation agency. Fill this out and let’s get started.”

~~~

When Laura and Lydia get back, Erica is searching the police databases to try to dig up the original missing person report on Alicia Boyd. It’s about 3am; Boyd (the alive one that is) is long gone, and Erica is being fueled mostly by Diet Coke and quiet horror at the story he’d told her.

“New client?” Lydia slides around behind the desk and peers over Erica’s shoulder at the screen while Laura is still shaking her hair dry from the rain. Born werewolves do hilariously dog-like things sometimes, Erica loves it.

“Yeah, he came in while you were out. It’s mine, I called dibs.”

“This case is old.” Laura has joined them behind the computer

“ _You’r_ e old.”

“And your hands are _freezing_ ,” Lydia hisses, skipping a step away.

“Wow, I wonder if that might be because I tracked a bail jumper for six miles in the rain while you sat in a warm car?”

“Possibly.”

“Yeah, just maybe.” Laura rolls her eyes, then refocuses on the screen. “Is this that guy who called about his dead sister? You actually took him on?”

“He passed the annoyance test and his credit checks out, he’s good to pay for it.” Erica sounds defensive even to her own ears, so she isn’t really surprised that Lydia and Laura immediately zero in on her like twin birds of prey.

“Really.” Laura smirks in that distinctly obnoxious Hale way.

“ _Really_ ,” Lydia echoes, shrugging one shoulder up coyly.

“And we’re done here.”

“No no Erica, tell us more about this client! Anything other than his credit ‘check out’?” Lydia is awful, and years ago Erica took lessons from her on how to make anything sound like an innuendo but she does not appreciate that skill right now. 

“He’s decent. For a human.”

“Ooh, speciesism from the bitten wolf, classy.”

“Fuck off.”

Erica returns to typing determinedly at her computer, taking notes on the initial canvassing of the neighborhood by the Beacon Hills police. Lydia, who has a very low threshold for being ignored, tosses her hair with a huffy “suit yourself” and disappears into her apartment back behind the office space.

“You know you’re going to need her not pissed off at you if you want her to sense for a decades-old death, right?” Laura drags a chair over and straddles it backwards because she’s ridiculous.

“And she’s going to need to be less of a—” Erica bites down on the word before it gets out of her mouth. She has…some bad habits, from when she was in an angrier place in life. Some things Laura made it clear weren’t acceptable to say about other women, not in her pack. “Never mind. Never mind, I’m over it, we’re good.”

“If you’re sure.” Laura stares at her with her Alpha-Mom face on for a minute longer, then grins. “So, this dude. You into him?”

“I mostly just feel bad for him,” Erica admits. “Like, sure, I wouldn’t kick him out of bed or anything, but…look.” She swivels the monitor so Laura can see Alicia Boyd’s picture. She’s smiling bright and wide, her hair all done up in braids. “He was with her when she disappeared. Last person who ever saw her. Imagine if that was Cora.”

“Cora never looked nearly that angelic,” Laura points out, but she’s focused on the picture, her scent sad.

“He didn’t even ask us to find out _if_ she’s dead. Just to prove that she is. He seemed so…tired.” Erica knows what it’s like to have your life sucked out of you, to feel crushed under the weight of something you can’t escape. She feels this conversation is beginning to threaten her reputation as a cold, unfeeling cynic, though, so it’s probably time to move it along. “Also, dude had some shoulders on him. He could probably bench-press me and I don’t mean in the gym.”

“Ha! Well don’t bang him while he’s a client, that’s a breach of professional conduct or whatever,” Laura says, and proceeds to be a total hypocrite by immediately disappearing to bang her girlfriend in the attached apartment. Erica is so ready for them to be done with the honeymoon phase already but she’s not holding her breath; this has been going on for _months_. When it’s just rustling and soft laughing it’s kind of cute, but then the moaning starts.

“I’m a werewolf, I can hear you!” Erica yells at them, slamming the fridge door on another Diet Coke.

“Oh, yeah, _baby,_ right _there_!” Lydia yells back, over-exaggerated.

“You’re both assholes!”

“Ohhhh, Laura!”

“This whole ‘putting the scream back in banshee’ thing isn’t funny!”

“Harder!”

“I’m going home!”

“Aaahhhh YES!”

Their neighbors probably hate them a lot.

 ~~~

In order for Lydia to find a body, she needs to feel connected to the dead person. Sometimes that leads to hilarious sessions of her holding musty clothing and antique pocket watches and scowling fiercely at how much like a cheap psychic she looks. Other times it’s not funny at all; Lydia tracked down a serial killer via the echoes of his victims in the first year they worked together, and Erica will never forget the raw, scraped croak of her throat for weeks afterwards. She still has nightmares about him, Erica knows, and though she might grumble about being the third wheel in their office she doesn’t in the least begrudge Lydia any solace Laura gives her when she wakes up screaming.

But whether hilarious or traumatizing, Lydia always finds the body eventually. Except, apparently, this time.

“Is this some kind of psychometry?” Boyd asks skeptically. Lydia rolls her eyes and doesn’t deign to respond. They’re in his apartment, since they try to accommodate the client as much as possible when asking them to share memories of someone they’ve lost and he wanted to be in his own space. Erica can sort of see why—her own apartment is a cramped, messy little space that she keeps her things in and sleeps at occasionally. No matter how old she gets she doesn’t seem to be developing those nesting instincts that are supposed to be harbingers of adulthood. But Boyd clearly has them; his apartment is big and open and clean and smells nice, like dish soap and real, non-takeout food. He settled into the chair at his kitchen table as if he actually spends time there, eating sitting down like some sort of well-adjusted person.

This is actually a home. Erica didn’t think people her age really had those. The couch in the living room looked obscenely comfortable and she kind of wants to kick off her boots and curl up for a nap. There’s a vibe to this place that makes her sure she’d get awesome sleep, unlike the crappy couch in the office where she sleeps eight nights out of ten.

“I’m not getting _anything_.” Lydia puts the photograph of Alicia down on the table, just shy of slamming it, and scowls at the world in general as if trying to hold it personally accountable. “This never happens.”

“What exactly are you supposed to be getting?” Boyd breaks in again, and Erica is pretty sure Lydia’s trying to disembowel him with her eyes.

Human clients are so pushy. At least their fellow creatures of the night will take “she’s sensing for the death” and just go with it. Lydia doesn’t usually even accept appointments with humans who don’t know what she really is, Erica had to call in favors from _months_ ago to get her here. 

“Shut up and let her concentrate,” she tells Boyd. “Do you want our help or not?”

“Considering I’m paying you, I’m pretty sure I want it.”

“Considering you’re paying us, I’m pretty sure you should have more faith in our methods.”

“Ugh, this is pointless.” Lydia stomps to her feet and grabs her bag. “You’re not even concentrating on Alicia any more.”

Boyd’s face freezes, stricken and guilty, and Erica’s stomach goes a little cold at the pit of it. She can basically see the acceptance of blame in his eyes. That’s fucked up. No one should have to feel that bad about getting distracted for a moment.

“Lydia, c’mon.”

Lydia Martin is nothing if not perceptive; she reads Erica’s face and modulates her tone slightly.

“It’s pointless because I’m not getting anything, I don’t know why. I apologize. You won’t be charged for this session, and Erica will keep looking with her own methods.”

“I’ll, uh, I’ll call you about a follow-up?” Erica offers. Boyd fake-smiles at her. It’s not even a very good fake smile. “ _Hey_.” The annoyed tone gets him to look at her, at least. “I told you, have some fucking faith in us. We’re professionals. I’ll call tomorrow.”

She herds Lydia out the door before he has a chance to respond. Lydia gives her a very unimpressed look but allows herself to be propelled towards the car. As Erica’s fishing for her keys in her purse, she notices that Lydia is just standing at the car door with her hand on the handle.

“Lydia?”

No answer.

“Lydia?” Erica moves to peer at her face just in time to watch her eyes go wide and shocked.

 “Shit,” she says, and her knees buckle.

Erica gets an arm underneath her before she hits the ground; she has to fight her muscles not to place her on her side and clear the area, because even after so many years she still has seizure instincts. Lydia’s head falls back, slack, and she says,

“Death surrounds her, holds her dear,

She is not beholden there.

Gore-fed hounds circling wide

Keep the little girl inside.

Stolen, hidden from the light

Little girl is soon a knight.

Bring her ruin, bring her pain

Banshee you will cry in vain.”

She draws in breath as if she’s going to scream. Erica braces herself—this close, Lydia’s full scream can do immense damage, especially to werewolf hearing—but no sound comes out. Instead Lydia coughs, flails a little bit, and comes to. 

“That’s never happened before,” she observes calmly.

“ _You don’t say.”_ Lydia shoves at Erica to get her to let her up and she does, reluctantly. “What was that? Are you okay? Do you remember what you said because that was some prophecy-type shit and I did not write it down.”

“ _Obviously_ I had a visuo-auditory parasensory event, what did it look like?” Lydia gets very acerbic when her banshee powers are activating, Erica has found. Not that that’s different from usual. “I remember. And I don’t know what it was. But I do know Alicia Boyd isn’t actually dead.”

She tosses her hair over her shoulder. “Now can you drive me home please? I have an atrocious headache.”

~~~ 

“Huh. That sounds kind of familiar,” says Laura about three hours later, stopping at the desk where Eric is pouring over a written version of Lydia’s prophecy. Laura’s hands are full of a tray containing a mug of tea, a martini, cake that she actually drove to the store for, and a grilled cheese sandwich. Lydia is literally the most spoiled princess in the world, Erica wants to have freaky prophetic visions if it means she gets to lie in bed and have someone dote on her for the rest of the day.

“What part?”

“Gore-fed hounds.”

“Werewolves? A pack took her?”

“Doubt it. But there’s something in there…Derek’s the one who’s always reading crap about other creatures and how they work, not me, but I’m pretty sure I heard some kind of story about hounds that feed on the bodies of the dead felled in battle.”

“Well that’s badass. Any idea what they are, where one might find them, and why they apparently kidnapped a human kid?”

Laura gestures expansively towards the latptop. “Yonder lies fair Google. Have fun.”

“Ugh I hate you.” Laura disappears to hand-feed Lydia while cooing about how brave she is—Erica is charmed and disgusted in equal measures—and Erica settles herself in front of the computer with a groan.

She hasn’t found anything substantial by the time she calls Boyd the next morning. She has a long list of dog-like creatures associated with death in any way, but this research junk is so not her thing. She’s a lot better at flirting and kicking ass.

Also lying, which she exercises when she tells Boyd a very heavily edited version of the goings-on.

“We have the beginnings of a lead. Research into the case showed that there’s a possibility that she was abducted by someone who used symbolism involving hounds that feed on gore and death. Is there anything about that that sounds familiar to you? Any strange people you remember from that time, or weird references to mythology?”

She isn’t expecting much. Humans tend to be pretty oblivious to the presence of the supernatural all around them; she certainly was.

“That sounds like the Cwn Annwn,” Boyd says immediately, and Erica almost drops her phone.

“Uh?”

“Welsh mythology. Hunting hounds that chased people down into hell. They’re part of the Wild Hunt, a lot of the time.”

“Oh my god are you a closet nerd?!” Erica is not being in the least professional at this point but she does not care, this is amazing.

“I saw that Green Lantern comic in your bag, you don’t have any room to judge,” he shoots back immediately, and Erica laughs delightedly. Boyd laughs too; the sound is static-y through the phone but it still feels like a victory.

“Touché. So, since you’re a massive nerd, tell me more about these hell hounds.”

The rest of Erica’s day is much more interesting after that. According to Boyd, the Cwn Annwn kidnap people and take them to the Welsh otherworld, Annwn. Either that or they escort them to hell, but Erica’s going to go out on a limb and guess that Alicia probably was not, at seven years old, a horrible enough person to be dragged into hell by magic dogs. So if she’s anywhere, Alicia is in Annwn, and that means Erica gets to find out how the fuck to get there.

For that, she needs Jenny. Erica calls her up and asks her to come over to the office, which Laura makes awful faces about; she never really approved of Erica and Jenny’s broship, something about wolves not getting along with druids. Whatever. Privilege of the bitten wolf, Erica gets less ancestral baggage that tries to tell her who to be friends with. She likes Jenny, for a high school English teacher she really knows how to party.

Jenny shows up when she’s done with classes for the day, which means Erica has a very large drink waiting for her when she gets through the door.

“You’re a saint,” she says, and downs it. Between her and her partner Kali, who’s a nurse, Jenny’s household has the most exhausting, stressful lives Erica’s ever seen. “The Pearl is on the mandated reading list for this year. I’m going to murder someone.”

“Your life sucks,” Erica agrees cheerfully. 

“More sympathy, less schadenfrede,” Jenny demands, and goes to change out of her school-district-mandated panty hose.

“Annwn? Well you came to the right girl,” she says when Erica has a chance to explain the situation. “I’m in the Mabinogic tradition. And the Cwn Annwn have certainly been known to take people for Arawn, but mostly as part of kidnap marriage traditions or as war hostages. Never children, not that I’ve heard. Could this girl have wandered into the path of the Hunt?”

“At 3pm in the middle of an ice skating rink?”

“Hm. Unlikely. Have you told your client his sister may be alive?”

“Not yet.” Erica feels twitchy about it, and it wasn’t an easy call, but she thinks she’s in the right on this one. “I don’t think he’d believe me, and even if he did it would be cruel to get his hopes up after ten years if it doesn’t work out.”

“I suppose. Well, what do you want to do?”

“Go get her back.” Jenny makes a face. “Ah, crud, what?”

“Annwn isn’t exactly accessible. The door only opens once a year, on Samhain.”

“Ugh, no, don’t tell me that. Come on, isn’t there another way in?”

“Some people say you can sail there, I suppose.” Jenny’s studying Lydia’s prophecy a little too casually, and Erica hears her heart rate tick up. Interesting.

“You suppose?”

“No one’s ever made a substantiated report of doing so.”

“But,” Erica prompts.

“But I suppose anything’s possible?” Jenny’s voice is high-pitched and her heart is till pounding. Erica rolls her eyes.

“Come _on_. Spill.”

“Werewolves are awful.” Jenny gets up and goes into the kitchen; Erica hears her pour herself another drink. “King Arthur and his knights were said to have traveled to Annwn in search of a magic cauldron. Some people equate it with Avalon, and say Morgan le Fey sailed Arthur’s body there to keep him in eternal slumber. People who are…fate-touched, in some way, tend to find their way there.”

“What good does that do me? I’m not exactly the Once and Future King,” Erica points out. Jenny comes back from the kitchen, and the hairs on Erica’s arms raise; her eyes are milky-white and shine like a full moon.

“Not yet. That’s where I can help.”

~~~ 

It takes five days for Jenny to be ready. Erica has argued Laura out of coming with, argued Lydia out of giving her a recording device to take with her (“It’s an amazing opportunity! You’d be the first person ever to get footage of the otherworld!” “We’re not conducting a sting! I don’t need a spy cam! This is not CSI: Avalon!”), and all that’s left to do is call Boyd and let him know she has a solid lead and is off to find him his answers.

“I’m going with you.” Erica takes the phone away from her ear and stares at it for a long moment in disbelief.

“Hah, cute. No.”

“I need to be there when you find the body.” Boyd’s voice is usually so steady that Erica actually flinches at how raw it is on the word ‘body.’ He sounds like the words are being torn out of him. “I know you understand. Don’t you? I need to be there.”

She means to argue, but she can’t seem to find any words to do it with.

“I’m sorry. I know you’re really helping me and I’m making things difficult. But I need this,” he says, quiet and desperate, and somehow she just can’t not say yes.

They meet by the waterfront, just before dusk. Erica has no idea what to expect in Annwn, so she’s brought her usual We’re ‘Bout To Get Into Trouble bag and dressed for chaos. She admits to being very gratified with the way Boyd’s eyes widen when he sees her—she knew the leather jacket and stompy fuck-off boots were a good plan. It’s a good look for her, and if she spent some extra time making her hair a riot of golden mane, no one has to know. It’s worth it for how she hears his heartbeat change.

“You’re expecting trouble, I guess?” he offers weakly.

“I _am_ trouble,” she corrects, and grins with all her teeth.

Jenny shows up just as the light is fading from the sky. Erica was kind of hoping she was going to show up in robes or a corset, something sexy and mystical, but she’s just in her normal schoolteacher outfit.

“Oh, uh, hi?” She looks from Boyd to Erica and back again, quick nervous flicks. “The client, I take it?”

“Yeah. Can you make it stretch to two?”

“I can. It may even help. Is he going to freak out?”

Erica shrugs. “He might.” She glances at Boyd. If he’s annoyed at being spoken about as if he isn’t there, or apprehensive about the mystery, he doesn’t show it. “So? Do your thing.”

“Stand a little closer together please.” Eric and Boyd obediently shuffle closer, until they’re almost touching and Erica can feel the heat of him next to her. It’s distracting…that is, until she looks up and Jenny’s eyes are glowing white again, her hair a dark halo around her head.

“Essence of the hero, the fated one, the questor, freely given to me as sacrifice, freely given now as boon,” she intones, and Erica feels something pass into her. It’s nothing close to tangible, but Boyd shivers next to her and she knows he feels it too. It’s like she’s wearing a coat under her skin, made of something Jenny spun for her and stitched into her flesh.

“Their power is your passage. Walk,” Jenny commands, and Erica’s feet move on their own, out towards the bay. She doesn’t try to fight it until she’s right at the lip of the water, and then her instincts take over and try to stop her from stepping into the sea. It’s too late, though; her foot comes down, and underneath it the water ripples…and holds.

“Holy shit,” she hears Boyd whisper next to her. She takes another step, and behind her so does he. The water under her feet doesn’t feel in the least bit precarious; it feels like she’s walking on pillows. They make their way into the fog over the bay, until the shore has disappeared behind them and all Erica can hear is the slight motion of the waves.

“Are you freaking out? I’m kind of freaking out,” she whispers.

“I’m. Uh. I might be a little freaking out.” His voice cracks on the ‘might’ and she giggles.  “So. Magic, huh?”

“Yep. It is, in fact a thing.”

“Huh.” Boyd falls silent. Erica sneaks a look at him from under her lashes: his eyes are very wide, but he still doesn’t say anything. In his position Erica would be yelling a billion questions at the top of her lungs, but he just takes it all in, silent. 

There is a shape emerging form the mist. Erica really hopes it’s Annwn and not, like, a sea monster or something.

“Is that where we’re going?” Boyd asks as it resolves into a shoreline, rocky and bare.

“I’m gonna go with probably yes and if not too bad,” Erica says. Their feet hit the shore and land with jarring solidity after the water. Boyd sucks in a sharp breath, and they start walking.

~~~ 

It takes literally less than five minutes before they get into trouble. Erica for once didn’t do anything to cause it; they were just making their way through the trees that the beach had given way to, looking around and trying to figure out where to go, and then the next thing she knew there was an arrow lodged in her shoulder.

“Aagh!” Erica says, which is a reasonable response to being shot, and from the trees something laughs.

“Unwary trespasser.”

Erica shoves Boyd out of the way of the next arrow, and takes the opportunity to pull the shaft out of her shoulder. She turns away, scenting for the attacker on the wind, scanning the trees for any sign of movement, and by the time she’s turned back her wound is gone. Laura says Erica has the fastest healing she’s ever seen.

“Sturdy trespasser,” she taunts the unseen presence, and in response hears a hint of motion, off to the right. “Come out and play, baby, this voyeur thing is so not doing it for me.”

“Are you okay? How badly are you bleeding?” Boyd asks, but she doesn’t have attention to spare to reassure him because there’s movement in the trees.

The thing that steps out is one of the weirdest creatures Erica has ever seen, and that’s counting Lydia’s ex-boyfriends. It face is like an owl’s, rounded and feathered, but the rest of it is covered in dark brown fur, from its spindly, too-thin limbs to its creepily huge, taloned hands and hooved feet. From the top of its head rise two thin antlers.

“Jeez, you’re like one of those match-the-head-to-the-body books that someone did wrong,” she says without thinking about it. The creature doesn’t blink—she doesn’t think it can, actually, not with its lidless owl-eyes—as it raises its bow and aims another arrow at her.

“We want an audience with Gwyn ap Nudd,” Boyd says, quickly.

“We do? Uh. Yes, we do.”

“Under quest rights? Yes, I suppose you are entitled.” The creature looks from her to Boyd and back again…and then shoots. Erica managed to move at the last second, enough that the arrow pins her to a tree by her shirt instead of impaling her by her throat.

“Hey!”

“The king would certainly grant you a hearing, were he made aware of your petition. I’m sorry the message has somehow not reached him,” the thing says. Erica has no idea what’s going on, but there’s a nasty edge of glee in that tone, one she remembers all too well. _I’m getting away with something_ , it says. She heard it every time someone cornered her in the girl’s bathroom or behind the gym to shove and prod and laugh in the hopes it would shock her into a seizure. Funny how the faces change but the nastiness underneath is all the same.

She reaches up to rip the arrow out of her shirt; the next one pins her other arm above her head.

“Stay still and die,” the creature suggests pleasantly as it nocks another arrow.

Erica grits her teeth and braces for the impact of arrow to flesh, and then Boyd is in front of her. He doesn’t shove her backwards, he doesn’t charge forwards, he just steps sideways as if he’s clearing the doorway in that quiet, gentlemanly way he does.

The arrow hits his sternum just under his ribs and sinks in with a ‘thunk’ of torn flesh.

Erica shrieks. Boyd drops like a rock, straight down to the ground, and she follows him in a sliding, strings-cut collapse, shirt tearing as it rips free. Her limbs haven’t felt this weak since back before the Bite, when she still had seizures. His hands come up to grab at the arrow and she knocks them away in case he tries to pull it out.

“You stupid, stupid _asshole_! I would have been fine!” She’s crying. She hasn’t done that in a long time, either.

“You’re right, that was rude.” He’s shaking under her hands, and they keep flinching away from touching him, up, down, up, down, like she can’t let them rest on him for too long or they might be too much weight. Blood is oozing around the arrow shaft.

“You don’t get it, you so don’t get it you _stupid human_ —”

“And you turned your back on an enemy. Foolish wolf.” There are talons at Erica’s neck. They prick in, one by one leaving sharp pain and trickling blood, and behind her she hears the hungry heartbeat of the thing.

“You’re about to get it, though,” she tells Boyd, and doesn’t dare look at his face as hers changes, as she spins around to claw and tear and roar her rage.

By the end of it she doesn’t think the creature is breathing. There’s a lot of blood, at least, though some of that is hers. A lot of it, maybe. The floaty way her head feels seems to support that theory, as does the way she’s slowly sliding to the ground. Boyd is shivering. The creature isn’t moving. Laura’s going to be so mad; Erica isn’t allowed to kill without her Alpha’s permission.

Slowly, Erica drags herself over next to Boyd. Her cuts burn, especially the big deep one on the inside of her arm. Aren’t there important arteries there or something? Probably. Probably there are more important arteries where Boyd’s been shot.

“Are you awake?” she asks him. Her voice feels thin. He doesn’t answer. Erica doesn’t know what to do.

She howls, instinct driving the sound up from her stomach through her throat. _I am alone. I am in pain. One of mine is dying. Help. Help me._  

From through the trees something howls back. Hope surges inside her; she throws her head back and wails louder. Three bays answer, the tone deep and rough. That’s not a wolf, Erica realizes with sudden fear. The howls get _softer_ as they get closer, fading as the sounds of running feet grow. Three hounds break through the trees, bodies almost as large as Laura in her full wolf form and a glowingly pale white color. The tips of their ears and the flashes of teeth when they snarl are blood-red and as they circle her and Boyd they’re completely silent. Erica shifts so she’s in front of Boyd, and moves painfully into a defensive crouch. She’s healing, but not fast enough. She’s not going to last long.

The first hound takes a step towards her…and something flies out of the trees straight into its face. It drops, luridly red blood dripping down, and the other two whirl to face the person emerging from the trees.

It’s a woman, Erica realizes. A tall woman with dark skin and braided hair. She bares her teeth at the dogs and they bare them right back, snapping and snarling. She cocks her arm back and another stone flies from her sling, right past a hounds face. It yelps; she laughs, and snarls again. And then, amazingly, the hounds turn and slink away into the trees.

“Are you okay? You’re all over blood.” The woman comes closer, gaze wary, and Erica realizes she’s younger than she thought. In fact, she looks about seventeen. As in, a seven year old girl plus ten years of growing, lost, while her family thought she was dead.

Erica has a weird suspicion that they’ve just found Alicia Boyd, and she’s also pretty sure she just saved their asses.

“You’re not from here are you?” the girl who might be Alicia asks, eyes assessing on Erica’s fur and fangs. “Declare your allegiance please.”

“Are you Alicia?” Erica responds, and the girl freezes.

“What did you just say.”

“Are you Alicia Boyd?” They don’t have time for this. Boyd is still bleeding. If this is her, Erica needs to know now.

To Erica’s shock the girl drops her weapon, claps a hand over her mouth, and starts to cry.

“I am,” she gasps out, words heaving. “I am, I am, _who gave you back my name_?”

Erica has no idea what that means. She’s healed enough to struggle to her feet now so she does.

“I’m Erica, I was hired to find you. We’ve got to go, now; your brother is hurt.”

“My. My…brother?”

Erica turns to look at Boyd. He’s breathing, and his heart is beating, but she has no idea how to tell how badly he’s hurt apart from that. The chest around the arrow is covered in a thick, sticky layer of blood.

“V?” Alicia whispers, next to her. Her hands shake as she reaches out to him, and stop just short of making contact with his arm. Their nailbeds are the exact same shape, Erica notices. Weird, how the little markers of family show like that. “Is he…?”

“Not yet.” _But I don’t know how long he has._ “Come on, we have to get out of here.”

Erica crouches and lifts Boyd into her arms, trying not to jostle the arrow in his chest. The only reason she knows to leave it in there is because Lydia got stabbed once, and Laura, eyes glowing red with rage and terror, screamed not to pull out the knife. Humans can’t heal fast enough, she’d said. They bleed to death.

 _Please don’t bleed to death_ , Erica begs Boyd silently. She reaches a hand back blindly, and shakes it insistently when Alicia doesn’t immediately grab it.

“Come _on_.”

“How are you going to get out? My name isn’t going to be enough, do you have a boat?”

“Don’t need one. Hold my fucking hand or I’m going to carry you too,” Erica hisses. Boyd isn’t exactly heavy for her with her werewolf strength, but he’s floppy. She’s scared of dropping him, scared of hurting him even more than she already got him hurt.

She feels Alicia take her hand, and she starts to run. They speed through the trees—Alicia is fast, fast as any human Erica’s ever seen—and behind them the baying of the hounds starts up again. Alicia’s hand tightens on Erica’s.

“They going to chase you?”

“Definitely.”

“Awesome.”

By the time they clear the treeline the hounds are nipping at their heels. Alicia fumbles in her pocket for a stone and doesn’t bother to aim before releasing it behind her—there’s a yelp, loud in the eerie silence of their pursuers, and she grins.

“Nice,” Erica observes, and then they’ve reached the shore.

Alicia balks at the water line, tugging back on Erica’s hand, and they do _not_ have time to explain so Erica just hauls her out onto the waves and keeps running.

“Oh. Oh, wow, no one has done that in centuries. Whose destiny did you steal to pull this off?” Alicia asks, eyes wide. Erica shrugs.

“I didn’t ask my friend where she got it.” Briefly she hopes Jenny didn’t take, like, the last hope for mankind or something. She’s not overly concerned, though. There are a lot of destinies in the world, probably there’s plenty to go around.

The shore is fading behind them, and the hounds haven’t followed, so Erica risks a quick glance back. Standing right at the rocky lip, white and red bodies boiling around her feet like waves, is a woman. Her hair is dark like midnight and her skin is tan, and even from the rapidly increasing distance between them Erica can see her eyes burning like two twin stars, cold and bright and terrible.

“Who’s that?” Erica asks, with what feels like some of the last breath she has in her lungs.

“My queen.” Alicia is panting too, but the words come out quiet and very steady. She sounds a lot like Boyd, in that moment. Erica looks at her consideringly.

“What, did you want to stay?”

“No. But until you said my name, I didn’t know I had anywhere else to go.”

“Dang.” They’re no longer fleeing for their lives, but they’re still racing against Boyd’s life; Erica slows her pace a tiny bit, to something sustainable, and keeps running. “They fucked with your memory?”

“They took Alicia away. They called me Mwyalch. Mwyalch of the Gathering Dawn.”

“…your life has been strange, hasn’t it.”

“Says the werewolf walking on water.”

“Touché.”

Erica has more questions, but Alicia is clearly struggling to keep up and probably doesn’t need the distraction of talking. She shuts up and keeps running, listening carefully to Boyd’s heartbeat.

~~~ 

Erica’s pack is waiting for her when they reach the shore. She stumbles as she steps onto the land, but it’s all right because Laura is there. She catches Erica’s elbows and helps her carefully lower Boyd to the ground.

“I heard you howl. I couldn’t get to you but I knew you needed me. What happened?”

“Never mind, tell you later, hospital now!” Erica pants. Behind her Alicia collapses and heaves—the pace Erica set was brutal, she knows, and she’s just glad the human made it the whole way.

“Right, yes, okay.” Laura’s already examining the arrow wound with careful fingers, and Erica only has to take one look at her to see that it’s bad.

“How much time does he have?” she asks Lydia, who avoid her eyes. “Lydia! _How much time_?”

“I can feel the scream starting,” Lydia admits. “Erica, I’m sorry, we’re not going to make it to a hospital.”

No. No, that’s not okay, that’s not allowed to happen. Erica found his sister for him. She found her and she’s alive and Boyd was supposed to be happy. He was supposed to finally lose that cloud of tiredness all around him, and the weight in his voice. Erica doesn’t even know him that well, not really, not yet, but he’s a _good person_. He deserves to see his sister again.

Lydia’s biting her lip now, holding it in, as if she can prolong his life by stopping her wail. That never works, but she always tries.

Erica has one thing left to try, too.

“Laura. Please, bite him.”

She hears Lydia gasp. Laura freezes.

“Erica, no.”

“He deserves a chance! And this is my fault! I did this and I don’t want him to die!”

“He may still—“

“I know that! But if it works he could be good, you know he could be good, and, just—Laura. _Alpha_. Please. Save him.”

Laura flexes her claws, in, out, restless and urgent. Boyd’s breath is rattling in his chest. Alicia is kneeling next to him, her eyes fixed on his face. Lydia’s mouth is opening.

“…grab the shaft of the arrow, don’t move it, and get ready to pull when I say so. We need the arrowhead out before we kickstart the healing,” Laura orders. Erica scrambles to obey, as Laura yanks up the side of Boyd’s shirt. She glances at Erica once more to be sure, and then her face twists, her fangs drop down, and she bites.

Boyd convulses.

Lydia screams.

“Erica, the arrow, now!” Laura yelps, eyes burning red and teeth stained with blood. Erica pulls, at first with a fraction of her strength and then, in shock at how very stuck in there it apparently is, harder. The arrow comes out with a sick, sucking sound.

“It’s out!” she yells.

Laura grabs the back of Boyd’s head, sinks her claws deep into his neck, and snarls “ _Heal_ ” with strong enough Alpha command harmonics behind it that Erica actually feels her own healing move into overdrive, trying to obey. 

“Nothing’s happening!” Her voice is high-pitched, shocky, panicked; she feels like she did right after her own Bite.  

“It’s okay. I don’t need his body to close the wound nearly as badly as I need it to fight off infection and replenish lost blood,” Laura says. She releases Boyd slowly and sits back; she sounds dead-tired. “If he’s going to make it, it’ll be because the turn starts in his immune system. We won’t know for hours.”

“So what do we do now?” Alicia asks.

“We bring him home and wait to see if he lives through the night.” Laura blinks at her. “Oh, hey, you his sister? Good job getting out.”

“Yeah, _hi_. Who exactly are you people?” Erica is honestly impressed they’ve gone this long without an outburst from Alicia. She apparently has a bit of Boyd’s ability to just roll with things; it’s going to be cool, watching them get to know each other. If he wakes up.  

“Hale, Martin and Reyes, private detectives.” Laura goes to pick Boyd up, but Erica waves her off.

“I’ve got him, Laura. You explain things to her. Lydia, you okay?”

“Well, you death-blocked me, I screamed for no reason, and now my throat hurts,” Lydia snaps.

“Aw, baby.” Laura and Erica say it at the same time, Laura sincere, Erica deeply sarcastic. Erica picks Boyd up again—it’s harder now that she’s not fueled by terror and he’s fully unconscious—as Laura goes over to draw out Lydia’s sore throat.

“You’re not a wolf,” Alicia notes. “You’re Tylwyth Teg, or close to it.”

“Banshee.” Lydia eyes her thoughtfully. “And you’re a changeling.”

“Buh?” Not Erica’s most intelligent response, but she’s busy carefully maneuvering Boyd into the backseat of the car. She has to stop herself from re-arranging his arm and his head again and again, trying to re-start the bleeding in his chest as little as possible. Eventually she realizes the best plan is to climb in herself, and hold his head and torso carefully in her lap, so she can stabilize him if he starts to slide. “I thought she was human. Alicia if you’re some fairy creature pretending to by Boyd’s sister we’re no longer cool.”

“Changeling can refer to the human stolen as well as whatever was left in their place,” Laura supplies. She eyes Erica in the backseat of the car, Boyd spread out over her legs, with a thoughtful look at Erica can’t interpret. “Comfy?”

“Sure. Let’s go.”

It’s an awkward ride back to their office.  Lydia is sitting on the floor of the backseat, curled up and fuming because she was relegated there as the shortest and easiest to fit. Alicia, in the front passenger seat, stares out the window with her eyes very wide. Belatedly Erica wonders if she’s even been back to the regular world since she was taken. Is this her first sight of regular human life in ten years? She catches Laura’s eyes in the rearview mirror; Laura is watching her and Boyd.

“Can you tell yet? Is he turning?” Erica asks her. She shakes her head and turns back to the road.

At the office, Erica installs Boyd in Lydia’s bed which elicits grumbles but not actual protests. His forehead is warm to the touch, which could be a sign of the turn beginning…or it could be fever from infection setting in. Erica is so no on board for this whole waiting and not-knowing thing. Especially not when Laura comes and sits down in the chair beside her.

“How did it happen?” she asks. Erica clenches her hand into a fist.

“He thought he was saving me. It wasn’t…I would have been fine.”

“You don’t tend to need much saving, most of the time,” Laura agrees. “You feel responsible.”

“He came with me. I let him come with, I didn’t tell him what he needed to know, and he got hurt.”

“He’s an adult, Erica. He made his own choices.”

“He’s human and he didn’t know what he was getting into. I should have protected him.” Saying it out loud makes it feel worse. Erica starts tearing up for the second time that day, and snuffles when Laura puts an arm around her.

“I know. I know, I worry about protecting Lydia every day.”

“It’s not the same,” Erica mumbles. She wipes her nose on Laura’s sleeve, because that’s what Alphas do for their pack.

“Maybe. But I do know that if I tried to protect Lydia by not letting her make her own decisions, I wouldn’t be doing her any favors.”

“Also I’d put aconite in her coffee.” Lydia sits herself primly on the floor next to Erica’s chair and leans her head against her knee. For all her verbal skill Lydia isn’t great at offering words of comfort, but the steady pressure of her there is enough.

Soft footsteps sound behind her and the Alicia is looking over her shoulder, eyes fixed on Boyd’s still face.

“I’m going to need someone to demonstrate for me how the shower works at some point,” she says distantly, as if she’s not really listening to the words. “I don’t recognize him at all.”

“You look alike,” Laura offers, and that gets Alicia to smile, the same surprised little smile Erica’s seen Boyd do only once so far.

“We do?”

“Yeah.”

Very gingerly, she makes her way around Lydia and seats herself on the edge of the bed. After a long, long moment, she reaches out and links her fingers through his.

 _Wake up_ , Erica tells him silently. _We’re all here waiting for you. Your sister is here waiting to meet you. I think I kind of really like you, not in the 6th grade way but in the way where you’re a person who actually just seems like a good person, a person who you want to know and want to have next to you and maybe want to kiss, so just. Wake up, already._

Three hours later, when Laura is snoring on Erica’s shoulder and Lydia is halfway through _Stochastic Resonance: From Suprathreshold Stochastic Resonance to Stochastic Signal Quantization_ , he does. The first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is Alicia, curled up at the edge of the bed with braids spilling down towards the floor. The look on his face makes Erica start crying all over again.

~~~ 

It’s two days later, just as Boyd is finally getting used to his new senses and is talking about bringing Alicia back to the rest of their family, that the Morrigan comes. Erica doesn’t know who it is at first, of course; she just opens the office door, sees the woman Alicia called her queen standing on the doorstep, and slams it shut again.

“Lydia, get the rowan and the blessed water!” she yells. “Where’s Alicia?”

“Kitchen!”

“ _Stay there_! Keep Boyd there too!” Laura comes running into the front room, claws already out, and the front door explodes.

Erica is blown backwards by the force of flying splinters, though she keeps her footing with difficulty. Laura roars and shifts fully, lunging forward in her wolf form with teeth bared. She reaches the center of the dispersing plaster and dust and is blown backwards too, claws scrabbling against the wooden floor.

The woman walks into the office through the ruins of the front wall and smiles.

“I’m here for what’s mine.”

“She’s eaten our food and we have clothed her, you have no right to take her back,” Lydia responds from the doorway. She has one of her homemade fae bombs in her hand, cocked and ready to throw—the rowan, St. John’s Wort, blessed water and iron dust in there will harm almost anything faerie.

“How astute. But I do have to right to have my final say.”

“Say it.” Alicia and Boyd appear behind Lydia, faces drawn and set in very similar expressions.

“I told you guys to stay in the kitchen,” Erica hisses.

“It’s me she wants to talk to.” Despite Laura trying to herd her back towards the kitchen with her body, Alicia comes more fully out into the room. “Go ahead.” She meets the Morrigan’s eerie, brilliant eyes squarely.

“If you wished to resign your commission with me, Mwyalch, there are less dramatic ways.”

“I served you under false pretenses. You told me you found me wandering lost as a child, and did not know who my people were.”

“They did not keep fast enough to your hand; they resigned their claim to you.”

Boyd makes a soft noise, as if he’s been shot again, and when Erica turns to look at him in alarm his face is furious. So deeply, powerfully angry that she actually reaches out to him, gets a hand on his arm in case he’s thinking of doing something stupid.

“I was twelve years old. I was twelve, I let go of her to skate around for five minutes by myself, and you think you can blame me? You stole my sister! You ruined our family! Why would you do that!”

The Morrigan shrugs. “I liked the look of her. She had sharp little blackbird eyes and a sharp little beak and I knew she would do well in my army. As she did.”

“And now I will no longer.”

“You will regret that decision.”

“Not by your hand. I’ll tell Arthur.”

The Morrigan laughs, head thrown back, hair spilling like dark water down her shoulders. “And no doubt I’ll be chastised as most unkeeping with our modern image. I meant no threat to you, Mwyalch. You will not fit with humans, not after so long with us, and when you realize that you will regret throwing us away.”

“This isn’t exactly Human Central, lady,” Erica points out. She flashes her eyes gold just to make the point. “She’ll do great here.”

“As you wish.” The woman looks at Alicia one more time, and all of the laughter fades from her face. “I will see you again,” she states, less like a pleasantry and more like a prophecy. Then she turns and leaves.

The five of them are very quiet for a long moment.

“…and I thought Lydia had the weirdest exes,” Erica says at last, and grins when Alicia laughs so hard she gets the hiccups. Boyd is laughing too, eyes on Alicia like he still can’t believe she’s real, but when he looks up and catches Erica’s gaze his smile widens. She gets those little 6th grade butterflies in her tummy after all.

Yeah, they’re going to be just fine.


End file.
